Posts Tagged 'Abby the Librarian'

Ever since I read Abby (the) Librarian’s post about The Reread, I’ve been pondering my own rereading. I used to reread books all the time when I was younger. Once a year I’d reread The Westing Game.

This is the same cover as my heavily dog-eared, well-loved, small paperback copy.

But unfortunately, somewhere along the way I got busy, and I haven’t read it in several years. Although I did listen to part of it a few months ago. Still awesome! I’ve read some of my other favorites lots of times, but it’s been years since I’ve reread those as well. Every time a new Harry Potter book came out, I’d reread the previous ones. When Deathly Hallows was released, it was a challenge to finish the first six in time, especially since I hadn’t left myself enough time…but I did it! (Still really proud of how quickly I got through #6 – until I think about how quickly I read #7.)

The last book I reread was The Hunger Games before Catching Fire was released. I had remembered how quickly I read it the first time, so I thought a reread was good to catch more stuff, but holy crap, I devoured it just as quickly the second time! *Sigh* What a good book.

I’m still in my book rut. I’m currently working my way through Incarceron (STILL, though mostly now because I usually just read it at lunch at work) and 13 Little Blue Envelopes (which I’m not loving, mostly because of the aunt). So instead of trying to continue with those, I thought I’d take a break and pick up an old favorite. I’m going with The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I feel bad avoiding my HUGE stack of more current, unread books to read, but maybe just reading a portion of this great book will help.

Like Jen said in her post, Fuse 8 has finished announcing the top 100 Children’s Chapter books. Abby (the) Librarian posted which ones she had read, then Jen did, and now I want to. 🙂 I’ve read the ones in bold. (And I’ve only included the ones I remember reading, so some of them I may actually have read as a kid, but who really remembers for sure.)

Whew! 63 out of 100. Not nearly as good as Abby’s 80, but still very respectable. I hoped to make 50, so I definitely exceeded my goal.

I was very excited to see 5 of MY top ten picks make it. Way to go Jeremy Thatcher!!! But where was Bunnicula??? I was sure he would make it!

Jen

EDIT: Can I just say that I am really really upset with Ms. Bird. She posted today about some of the books that were close, but did not make the poll and had this to say about the voting:

“In the event that a class of kids votes, I will count the votes and tally them. However, for a classroom child’s vote to count (and I’m sorry to do this guys, but I can’t see any way around it) two adults must have voted for the same book for it to appear on the Top 100 poll. Individual votes from kids will count as the same as adult votes. The reason for this is that often teachers will make this poll an assignment in class and it sometimes seems as if not all the kids want to participate. To avoid vote swaying, we have had to institute this rule.”

WHAT???? As a children’s librarian, I am used to people saying children are not as important as adults when it comes to patrons, and children’s materials always come second to adult materials. I did not expect to hear this same sentiment coming from another children’s librarian!!! It is a POLL…..does she not understand how polls work??? People vote, and the votes are counted….they should not be manipulated to get the results you want.

The poll was for people’s favorite books, not the best books, their favorite books. She said that if she had included all the kid’s votes it would have been “50% fantasy sequels published in the last 5 years.” So what??!!!!

I ABSOLUTELY HATE the fact that as a whole librarians are so elitist about books. There are GOOD books, and then there are books that they tolerate because kids love them. I don’t include myself in that because a lot of the GOOD books according to librarians are not enjoyable at all to me.

So anyway, the whole poll means nothing to me anymore because the results were tampered with. A few of the commenters were like, “Oh good for you, Betsy for making sure the RIGHT books made it on the list.”

Sheesh…..I am very disappointed in my profession right now. I want to be a plumber.

EDIT: Also, I just thought of something else…..half of the comments about the various favorites on the poll started out with “I first fell in love with this book when I was 9 and couldn’t stop reading it….blah, blah, blah.” So it is okay if it is an adult’s favorite book from when they were in 3rd grade, but a child’s favorite book from right now means nothing. Hmmmmm, no wonder kids hate grown-ups.